Hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his decision to freeze the planned judicial reform temporarily, more than a hundred thousand Israelis rallied in Jerusalem to support the government’s push to overhaul the judiciary.
The Israeli news website Arutz Sheva reported Monday night:
Over a hundred thousand supporters of the judicial reforms demonstrated outside the Knesset in Jerusalem Monday evening to call on the government to stand firm in passing the reforms and not to freeze the legislation.The pro-reform demonstrators chanted “Our voice isn’t less important than a pilot’s,” We know exactly who we voted for” and “A minority of elites cannot bring the country to this point. We are one nation.”
On Monday evening, Prime Minister Netanyahu halted the judicial reform amid calls for a general strike by left-wing groups.
“There is an extremist minority that is prepared to tear our country to pieces. It is using violence and incitement, it is threatening to harm elected officials, it is stoking civil war, and it is calling for refusal to serve, which is a terrible crime,” Netanyahu said.
“Therefore, out of national responsibility, out of a desire to prevent a rift in the nation, I have decided to suspend the second and third readings of the law in the current Knesset session in order to allow time to try and reach that broad consensus, ahead of legislation in the next Knesset session,” the prime minister concluded. (Read the full text of the speech here.)
The Biden White, which had been vocal against the judicial overhaul, was among the first Western governments to “welcome” the rollback.
Germany’s state TV Deutsche Welle reported:
The White House welcomed the postponement and said it saw it “as an opportunity to create additional time and space for compromise,” Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.”Democratic societies are strengthened by checks and balances and fundamental changes to a democratic system should be pursued with the broadest possible base of popular support.”
While Prime Minister Netanyahu postponed the reform process for the time being, he filed the judicial bill in the parliament for a future vote — possibly during the summer session. The left-wing opposition ‘fumed” over the move that allowed the government to keep the bill alive.
The Times of Israel reported:
Opposition lawmakers fumed Tuesday morning as it became apparent that despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement Monday night that his government was pausing its judicial overhaul push in order to launch negotiations with the opposition, one of its most controversial bills had nevertheless been submitted to the Knesset for its final votes, which would enable it to be brought for approval at any later date. (…)The bill — which would give the government exclusive say in the first two Supreme Court picks that become empty during its term, followed by a mutual veto in the uncommon situation of a third or fourth justice being selected in a single term — was approved Monday by the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee for its final readings in the Knesset plenum.Filing it with the Knesset secretary enables the coalition to call the final votes with 24 hours’ notice. The Knesset begins a month-long recess this weekend.The move was done just hours before Netanyahu called for a pause in legislative efforts but only announced Tuesday morning.
The bill drafted by the Netanyahu-led coalition would give Israel’s elected government the power to change the constitution and nominate judges to the Supreme Court, something the left-wing parties and activists bitterly opposed.
Here is an informative Twitter thread by Avi Woolf on the much-maligned judicial reform (courtesy David Gerstman):
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